Christopher Mollard

User Experience contractordesignerresearcherdeveloperlead

CV

I am a User Experience designer.
I speak fluent French and English.
In my spare time I fence - I have been selected for the Scottish Men's Foil team at the 5 Nations International Tournament every year since 2012.
In 2017 I was selected for the British fencing team to compete at the Prince Takamodo Tokyo World Cup.

Design and Me

Though not all designers seek to collaborate and integrate with other professions/industries (for greater understanding), it is an aspect which I find to be essential. When talking about form and function, I always place function as my highest priority: products and services which look good but don't work simply annoy me.
I hope to be able to use my skills to influence people's lives for the better. I don't just mean making things easier, but keeping people thinking as well. I find the ends of the scale between established and recognisable standards and new designs to be very interesting. Especially in finding the threshold between the two?
My work and clients are listed below, alternatively you can view all my details on my LinkedIn profile.

My skills

I spend a lot of time across all stages of the User Experience delivery lifecycle so that I have in depth understanding and skills for all areas (requirements gathering, usability testing, visual design and information architecture) and am fully competent in all of them. However I believe that my strongest skills are in information architecture and user interface design, as well as client engagement. Please see my CV or LinkedIn profile for more details.
I have a number of proficient skills:

User Centred Design

Usability testing

Designing workshops

Agile

Sketching and communication

Front end development

Visual/UI design

Prototyping

Logo and branding

Requirements gathering

That are facilitated by my knowledge and use of certain programmes and applications:

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe InDesign

HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT

Axure

Professional Timeline

Company director and UX Designer

I decided to branch out so that I could focus on doing great work for clients and being able to dedicate time properly without the split that comes with being a consultant. By becoming a UX Contractor I have been able to give myself time to be more focussed on the work I deliver and the means to do a great job. I focus on all aspects of the UX spectrum from conception, definition, research, and delivery. I find fascinating insights, create useful wireframes and beautiful designs as well as working with developers and testers for high quality build and implementation that is on time and in line with user's needs.
I strive to be involved in the wider world of UX by attending Meet Up events and staying involved with the Product Design course at Brunel University. I am a guest lecturer on User Experience and attend Made In Brunel every year.

Senior UX Designer and Consultant

My role keeps me involved in every stage of a project’s lifecycle, usually as User Experience lead and integrating UX with Agile development. As a leading member of PA’s UX Capability I have been responsible for graduate recruitment, UX promotion and events and working with key business stakeholders to create exciting and innovative opportunities to showcase UX for what it should really mean to a business.
Following a User-Centred Design approach I plan and run workshops with clients, stakeholders and users to determine the functional requirements of a product or concept to best understand both the business and user needs. I provide conceptual designs to vision my understanding, the fidelity of which may depend on the project. Working in the Digital Business sector means that I usually provide design iterations (Axure wireframes or pixel perfect images) - fed by validations through usability testing - although I also enjoy working as a front end developer - often writing code to bridge the gap between the design and development teams and assist the development teams wherever I can.
Much of my experience has been working within Agile and using the Scrum methodology, specifically being a lead UX designer or front end developer on a project. I am also a Certified ScrumMaster and enjoy the role, finding it’s purpose and results in the team quite satisfying.
I joined in 2013 at the rank of Analyst (junior) and was promoted twice in two years to reach the rank of Consultant (mid-senior).

UX Designer

I created visual designs and templates for the Adgistics website in a period of growth for the company. Working with other designers and developers I created engaging and compelling wireframes and visual designs.

UX Intern

Having started as an intern, the first few months were spent shadowing designers to understand established processed between teams. I rotated between Interaction Design, Visual Design and Customer Experience. In each team I worked on wireframes, visual designs and with developers to deliver projects successfully and on time across desktop, mobile and mobile web platforms.
By the end of the internship I had been offered a contract extension and was working as a Junior Visual Designer. Responsibilities included leading designs on several projects, several of which went live on Betfair.com.